In new memoir, Sally Field describes sexual abuse by stepfather: 'I felt helpless'

The two-time Oscar-winning actress, 71, spoke with the New York Times recently about the revelations of the book, including a shocking allegation about her stepfather, actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney. Field says that when she was 14 years old, he would frequently call her into his bedroom alone.

“I knew,” she wrote in her memoir, according to the NYT. “I felt both a child, helpless, and not a child. Powerful. This was power. And I owned it. But I wanted to be a child — and yet.”

Field’s mother, Margaret, filed for divorce from her father, Richard, in 1951, and married Mahoney in 1952. They divorced in 1968, and he died in 1989, the Times reported.

In the interview, and in the book, Field also recounted two other instances of abuse by men in Hollywood. She recalled one instance where she woke up with actor Jimmy Webb “on top of me, grinding away to another melody,” and an audition with director Bob Rafelson, who demanded she kiss him for her part in the 1976 feature “Stay Hungry.”

Photo: Grand Central Publishing

Field told the Times she didn’t feel Webb’s behavior was “malicious.” Webb described his relationship with Field to the Times as full of “respect,” adding they “dated and did what 22-year-olds did in the late 60s — we hung out, we smoked pot, we had sex.” Rafelson said Field’s story was “totally untrue” and that he “didn’t make anybody kiss me in order to get any part.”

Also addressed in the book is the “Norma Rae”star’s relationship with actor Burt Reynolds. She described it to the outlet as “confusing and complicated, and not without loving and caring, but really complicated and hurtful to me.” Now, Field sees connections between her and Reynold’s romance and the relationship with her stepfather.

“I was somehow exorcising something that needed to be exorcised,” she said. “I was trying to make it work this time.” Reynolds died Sept. 6 at 82 years old.

“I knew I had a story to tell and I knew I had to tell it. It’s taken me a great deal of time to figure out exactly what it was,” Field said. The book took her seven years to write.

“I have this life that no one really knows… or at least I didn’t even know truly,” she added. “This is incredibly raw and intimate and personal. (The memoir includes) things I never thought I wanted to say out loud.”